WASHINGTON—Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee Tuesday, CUNA President and CEO Jim Nussle told Congress credit unions are being “crushed” by the regulatory burden.
Nussle’s testimony—his first before Congress since taking over as CUNA’s CEO--came during a hearing titled “Making a Financial Choice: More Capital or More Government Control?” The hearing focused on committee Chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s (R-TX) proposed alternative bill to the Dodd-Frank Act. The hearing marked the first time that Nussle, a former congressman from Iowa, testified on Capitol Hill as president/CEO of CUNA.
Among many points emphasized, Nussle stressed how CUs are “less risky” than banks, “subject to less volatility over the business cycle . . . Because of their lower-risk profile, credit union failures tend to be much less common than bank failures.”
Nussle added that a “constant refrain I hear from our member credit unions is that they are being crushed by regulatory burden that has been imposed in response to a crisis they neither caused nor contributed to. Regulatory burden impedes credit unions’ ability to fully serve their members and is the leading driver of credit union consolidation.”
Nussle’s complete testimony can be found in CUToday.info’s The gov.